Making It Look Easy with Stephanie Lopez

“She does make it look easy,” said her collegiate coach, the University of Portland’s Garrett Smith. “I know the first time I saw her play it never looked like she had to sprint to anything. She just read the game so well. She moves flawlessly on the field. Her natural athleticism makes things look easy, which are very, very difficult to do.”

Inspect Lopez’s chockfull 2006 schedule accompanied by her list of accomplishments and it wouldn’t be far-fetched to extend the summation of her game to her life.

From January through May, she trekked to China, Portugal and Japan with the full U.S. Women’s National Team, competed in a handful of U-20 U.S. Women’s National Team camps including contests in Germany, participated in the Pilots spring soccer season and carted her school books along with her every stop of the way. Residency with the full team and events with the U-20s including a trip to Finland occupied June and July. In August, she traveled to Russia for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Championship. This fall Lopez is back in Portland, Ore. aiding the Pilots quest to repeat as NCAA champions and continuing the pursuit of a degree in psychology with a minor in Spanish while jetting off to a handful of National Team friendlies. As the year winds down, World Cup qualifying, the NCAA tournament and final exams loom.

Through the whirl of custom forms, boarding passes and hotel room keys, Lopez has earned seven National Team caps in 2006, captained the U.S. U-20s, secured the Pilots defense, and maintained a 3.70 grade point average.

Sometimes, however, things aren’t as easy as they appear.

Take for example, the first two weeks of September. On Sunday, Sept. 3 Lopez was in Moscow, Russia digesting the U-20s second consecutive loss in a penalty kick shootout, which dropped the U.S. to fourth place, the worst finish of any U.S. women’s team at a world championship event. The following day she boarded a plane and returned to Portland. Tuesday morning, despite feeling the after effects of an 11-hour time change, she sat in class catching up on a week’s worth of missed lectures.

Two weeks into the Pilots season, Lopez made her 2006 debut on Sunday, Sept. 10 logging all 90 minutes in then sixth-ranked Portland’s 1-0 loss to No. 5 North Carolina. Following the match against the Tar Heels, she hopped on another airplane, this one bound for Rochester, N.Y. where the full National Team faced Mexico on Wednesday, Sept. 13. Lopez played the entire second half in a 3-1 win, headed back to the airport and recorded another 90 minutes in Portland’s 3-0 victory over Oregon State on Friday, Sept. 15 in Corvallis, Ore.

Fearing fatigue, Smith glued his 5’6” redshirt junior to the bench for a Sunday, Sept. 17 match against Portland State, one of three Pilots games this season Lopez has dressed for but not played.

“Garrett throughout this season has been really helpful just trying to make sure that he’s on the same page as I am on how I’m doing and trying to give me time off when he can and making sure that my body can handle it all,” Lopez said. “He really understands how players can get burnt out more mentally, but also physically.”

Balancing three teams also takes a toll on the emotions. There are regrets, both large and small, that accompany such a giant task. Tinges of neglect can surface when one team pulls you away from another.

“I wish I could give more to my Portland team and to have been here consistently and be more of a part of the growing process for this team,” Lopez said.

When she feels the most spread out and on the cusp of losing her grip, Lopez pauses and pans her focus out to the larger picture.

“You can easily get overwhelmed and I think sometimes I do,” she said. “But I just try to look at it and see like wow, where I’m at and not to get so caught up in just rushing through every day and trying to get everything done, but really just seeing what a great opportunity I have.”

Lopez hopes all of the airline miles and game experience she is accruing this year lead to the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup in China next September. In a touch of irony, the National Team coaches don’t want her game to seem any easier. They want it to look harder.

“One of the things that was really crucial for me with getting more opportunities with them (this year) was just to be a harder player, to realize at the next level you can’t just slide past players,” she said. “You really have to get into them. It’s just a physical game up there and to really let them know that you have a presence out there. I think the coaches are probably a little bit more confident with me just getting into tackles and just my defending. Hopefully they’ve seen some more of my grit since I was in with them at residency and pushing through. I think as a young player at times you haven’t really been pushed that hard. Everything has come easy for you.”

In the latter part of December, Lopez will receive a brief respite from the hectic yet fulfilling life she has led in 2006. For a few weeks, no team and no schoolwork will lay claim to her. Although she is quick to say she is greatly anticipating the NCAA playoffs, she will admit to peeking anxiously ahead to her pending free time. Plans have already been made to attend a Seattle Seahawks football game with her boyfriend and to spend a few days with him and his family before returning home to Elk Grove, Calif. to celebrate Christmas with her parents and three brothers.

Then the New Year will arrive bearing many of the same challenges as 2006. Juggling National Team duties, her senior season at Portland and her studies, Lopez will continue to navigate the hard with an easy grace.